


The Right Time and The Perfect Place

by Dorasolo



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 2015 era, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 19:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20087389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorasolo/pseuds/Dorasolo
Summary: Hope bites her lip to keep from smiling at him. “I wasn’t staring. I was checking to make sure you’re all in one piece.”“Well, am I?” He gives her a conceited little smirk that two months ago would have set her teeth on edge but now, it’s not so bad.OrThat 2015 Ant-Man post-movie scene you wanted to see but didn’t.





	1. Chapter 1

Hope Van Dyne startles awake, her thoughts disjointed and muddled, the electronic beeping and the din of voices jarring her from her restless sleep in an uncomfortable orange plastic chair. She struggles to orient herself while stretching out her back and legs painfully. She’s in a hospital waiting room, UCSF to be precise. Hope hates the hospital, hates the smell of disinfectant, hates the squeak of shoes on the floors. It has everything to do with waiting for her father, Dr. Hank Pym, to come see her after her appendix had burst when she was nine. She can still feel the crushing disappointment when he didn’t come, and even though Aunt Peggy had arrived before she went under anesthesia, it wasn’t the same. 

Everything from the night before rushes back and she bites back a gasp. Her plan to stop Darren Cross, her former friend and business partner, had actually worked. Pym Tech had exploded in on itself so the Cross helmed nanotechnology plans can no longer leak to Hydra or SHIELD or Stark. 

But, it wasn’t without costs. Hank is in surgery to remove a bullet from his shoulder. Darren had shot him before they could get out of the building. What kind of person shoots a seventy year old man? The kind of person Hope Van Dyne willingly associated with while being petty, that’s who. 

Hope packs that character assassinating fact away for later and tries to regroup, an action made much more difficult because Darren, now a dangerous fugitive, is currently at large. Earlier, Hope had heard the officer stationed to guard Hank ask his partner over the radio if there was any sign of Cross. There was not, despite several police reports of men in space suits causing damage. 

She’s trying desperately to be better than a person who would disappear from her father’s bedside when he’s seventy and suffering from a gunshot wound, but she’s getting antsy just sitting around waiting for any news.

As if conjured by magic, the surgeon responsible for Hank approaches her in the waiting room. “Ms. Pym?” 

Her brain screams _Van Dyne!_, but Hope bites her lip, wanting to know if Hank is alive and if it’s likely he’ll stay that way more than she wants to correct his surgeon. She cocks her head at the doctor, keeping her face composed just in case it’s bad news.

The doctor continues, oblivious to Hope’s inner turmoil, “Your father came through surgery and is stable, but he’s going to need to stay asleep for the next few hours to make sure he remains that way,” she explains. “At his age, a gunshot wound can be much more significant. I’d suggest you go home, get changed, catch a bit of sleep. We will call when we are ready to wake him.”

Hope looks down at what used to be her tailored suit, recoiling at the blood staining her shirt, her nail beds, and her really expensive shoes. She nods curtly. “Be sure that you call me the minute you plan on waking him. I intend to be here, I don’t want him to be alone.”

The doctor reassures her that they’ll call, so Hope steps outside into the hustle of late night San Francisco to take a cab back to her apartment. She is about to give the cabbie her apartment address but decides at the last minute that she should go to Hank’s house instead, just in case Scott Lang has returned there. Not only is Darren missing, but she hasn’t heard from Scott since she told him to go after Darren. Now that she knows Hank is most likely out of danger of death, Scott’s radio silence is more upsetting to her than she wants to admit. Most of the time she can’t get him to shut up, so it would figure that the one time she wants to hear his inane chatter, there’s nothing. 

***

She lets herself into Hank’s house, and immediately walks to the extra bedroom to look for Scott, who had been crashing there while they were all working late nights together on the heist. Even though technically he had to stay there or risk his rearrest for escaping from police custody, Hope is having a hard time imagining Hank’s house without him. 

Scott’s not there, so the house is as quiet as it had been when she was a child, and she hates it. Worry is getting the best of her, so she perches on the corner of the bed and starts scrolling on her phone for news. She quickly finds a local news segment about men in space suits causing damage in a residential area. With an escalating sense of dread, she sees one picture of a massively oversized Thomas the Tank Engine, and recognizes the house with the damage as Scott’s ex’s house from the pictures she’s seen of his daughter, Cassie. 

Piecing together what she already knows is correct, she believes that Darren must have gone after Scott’s daughter and forced Scott to fight. Hope fights the current of guilt that threatens to pull her under - after all, Scott is a big boy and he knew that what he was getting into was dangerous. But the thought isn’t at all reassuring, so she figures she’ll just wait for Scott at Hank’s in case he returns soon. But, as the hours creep towards dawn, Hope can’t help but close her eyes, just for a second. She’s exhausted. She does not want to admit that she is comforted by the smell of Scott’s laundry detergent and whatever deodorant he uses that lingers on the pillow. 

Hope wakes again, and this time it’s the angry buzz of her cell phone that she set down near her head that jolts her from sleep. It’s now about seven in the morning according to the screen, and still no Scott. She would have been the first to know if Scott returned, as she sheepishly realizes that she slept for several hours on top of what she thinks of as Scott’s bed. 

She answers the doctor's phone call, and wanders over to the bathroom to freshen up before heading back to the hospital for Hank. She’s still a mess with dried blood on her clothes, bangs plastered to her forehead, and red lipstick smudged around her mouth. She methodically puts herself back together, throwing away her bloodstained shirt, and changing into some of the workout clothes she’s left in the basement. 

Hope dials Scott on her way back to the hospital but the phone goes directly to voicemail. Scott is horrible about charging his phone normally and even worse about remembering to bring it with him, which never ceases to annoy her. It’s probably still at Hank’s somewhere near where she slept. Sleeping on the bed, even on top of the covers, makes her feel hot with embarrassment and at the same time fluttery inside. Fluttery is not how she wants to be feeling about Scott Lang at all, especially not now, when she doesn’t know where he is and he hasn’t called. 

Hope has no idea when she started feeling fluttery about Scott, but she can guess that it had something to do with the way he looked at her in the kitchen when he returned from Avengers headquarters. Or maybe it was how he flirted with her when she told him she almost liked him. Or maybe it was when he followed her into her car to talk her off a ledge, who knows. This has been building for awhile, this attraction; she’s just shoved it away. 

***

After she arrives back at the hospital and parks the car, Hope walks past security, checks in at the desk, and sees herself into Hank’s hospital room. Hank’s dozing, pale and small in the bed, and he looks a lot older than she remembers him in her head. Hope has a million fleeting thoughts about how they shouldn’t have let it get this bad, their cracked relationship, but now is not the time for regrets. 

“Hank?”

He stirs in the bed, but doesn’t open his eyes. 

“Dad?” 

Hank opens his eyes and Hope knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did that on purpose, the manipulative bastard, but she smiles widely as her eyes well with tears anyway. 

“Hi, Hope.”

“Hi, Dad.” She scoots a chair over to his bedside and takes his hand. “Good to see you awake.”

“Good to be awake,” he answers gruffly, looking up at her with his cornflower blue eyes. “Do we have any news?”

“Pym Tech is gone,” Hope tells him. “The whole thing. Nothing made it out.” 

“That’s good.” Hank peers around her shoulder at the empty doorway. “And Scott? Is he out there with you?” 

Hope looks away from his eyes. “Scott hasn’t checked in yet,” she starts, treading carefully because he’s recovering from a gunshot wound, and she doesn’t want to upset him.

“Hmm,” he says, a loaded sentence in and of itself. “And Darren?” 

“No sign of him, either.”

“Hmm,” Hank says again, frowning, as he shifts in discomfort, looking like he should still be sleeping this off and not keeping her company. 

“I’ll follow up,” Hope promises. “I figured out where they ended up, so I’ll head there while you rest and check in a little later.”

She gathers her things together and starts to leave when Hank calls her back. She turns around at his question. 

“Hope? Where did they end up?” 

Hope cringes. “It looks like Darren might have found Scott’s daughter.”

Hank lets out a pained exhalation and grimaces at the news. “I hope you find them.”

“Me too,” Hope agrees, thinking only of Scott and Cassie.

***

She goes to her apartment to shower and change into something a little more respectable than yoga pants and a tank top to have this conversation with Scott’s daughter. She pulls up to 840 Winter Street, parallel parks on the street, and sits in the car for a few minutes, surveying the damage. The mammoth Thomas the Tank Engine is still resting on a crushed police squad car, and there’s still a giant hole in the roof. The hole is now covered by plastic, and there’s police tape everywhere.

Hope applies a fresh coat of lipstick in the car, and fidgets with her necklace for a bit too long. She does not want to tell Scott’s little girl that her dad is most likely lost in time and space; it’s too much. Growing up without her mother has made her both uniquely suited for having this conversation and completely unwilling to think about having it with another little girl. But it’s the right thing to do, so she drags herself to the door and rings the doorbell.

A tall, pretty, brown-eyed blonde woman answers, and Hope is momentarily taken aback - this is Maggie Lang, Scott’s ex, the one putting up so many rules to keep Scott from Cassie. Though Hope understands why Maggie would want to protect her daughter, Hope knows how much it crushes Scott to be the villain in this story. 

Maggie breaks her from her reverie. “Can I help you?”

“Yes. I’m Hope Van Dyne. I work with Scott Lang at Pym Tech. Is he here, by any chance?”

Maggie looks at her peculiarly. “You work with Scott? You look awfully fancy to be somebody who works with Scott,” she observes aloud, not bothering to hide her judgment.

Hope smiles her most polite smile, something clicking in her brain that everybody underestimates Scott, and this time it annoys her. “Yes, he was on assignment last night for a high tech project. He hasn’t checked in today after last night’s explosion at the office, so I was hoping to find him here. Police reports say that it’s his last known location.” 

The pattering of little feet can be heard running down the stairs. A small girl with big brown eyes and brown hair stops before she barrels into her mother. “Are you here to help find my Daddy?” 

“Yes,” Hope answers, her heart in her throat at the little face so much like Scott’s. “Yes, I would really like to help find your Daddy.” 

Hope looks back up at Maggie, and Maggie’s haughty demeanor softens entirely at something she sees in Hope’s face, so now she just looks weary. 

Jim Paxton joins them in the living room, and he and Hope exchange business cards. He looks a bit perplexed. “Weren’t you the one who called the police to report Scott Lang’s burglary at the Pym residence?” 

“A mistake,” Hope says smoothly. “My father had hired Scott and I wasn’t aware of it at the time. That’s why we bailed him out of jail. The charges really should have been dropped by now, we have no interest in going forward with his prosecution.” 

“Hmm,” Paxton replies, looking at her shrewdly. “How do I know you’re not in league with that yellow suited asshole who threatened Cassie last night?” 

“Oooh you said a swear,” whispers Cassie, from where she’s been eavesdropping on the staircase. 

“Because I’m not,” Hope answers simply, as Maggie scoops Cassie from the stairs and into the room, which is good because Cassie needs to hear this too. “We hired Scott to help us with the crisis Darren Cross created by making that yellow suit.” 

Maggie looks a bit incredulous. “You hired Scott to fight Darren Cross? Scott hates physical conflict.”

Hope shakes her head. “No. We hired him to procure information.”

“You hired him to break into something,” Maggie deduces, a small, ironic smile on her face. “I suppose that’s playing to his strengths.” 

Paxton clears his throat. “I don’t know anything about his job description at Pym Tech, but I saw a lot of the fight between Mr. Cross and Scott when Mr. Cross had taken Cassie hostage. Scott wanted to rescue her.” 

“Yeah,” Cassie pipes up, trying to be helpful to the grownups. “My Daddy came to get me. First they were big and then they were small and then they were big and then my train was big and an ant got real big and then my Daddy told Paxton to get me out of there but the yellow guy stopped us with his laser guns and then they both got small again and now they’re gone.”

Hope digests the information, notes that there’s no question that Scott fathered this child, and repeats back what she thinks is the most important part. “So when they got small again, they never came back?”

“Scott shrunk, and then the yellow guy started yelling and trying to reach his back like it had an itch, and then parts of his body started disappearing,” Paxton tries to explain. “Then they both sort of winked out.” 

Hope figures that Scott shrunk to try and disable the Yellowjacket suit from the inside, the same way he disabled Falcon’s suit at Avenger headquarters, but Darren had probably expected that possibility and somehow sealed the suit. So, for Darren to then shrink out of existence himself… It hits her that Scott must have shrunk too much, and is likely somewhere lost between the molecules, just like her mother. She stifles her groan but can’t stop her eyes from watering. 

“Is my Daddy going to come back?” Cassie rocks back and forth, affected by Hope’s silence and stricken expression. 

Hope swallows thickly. “I hope so, Cassie, I really do, but the science is tricky and I don’t know.”

Paxton clears his throat, shock all over his handsome features. “Are you saying Scott might be gone, like gone for good?”

Maggie shakes her head at Paxton as Cassie starts whimpering. She holds her gap-toothed, crying daughter and glares at Hope, who feels entirely helpless. “Or he might be fine, you just don’t know?”

“This kind of thing could right itself,” Hope lies quickly, her voice thick, but she knows better than anybody else in the room how hollow her words sound. She knows better than to have said anything, but saying that Scott might come back wasn’t just for them. Hope also wants Scott to wink back into existence, and for them to go on living like they used to, like he didn’t sacrifice himself for her cause. 

Hope is desperate to say anything remotely helpful, but she has nothing. “If anything strange happens again, please call me, at any time,” she offers, weakly, knowing it’s really not enough, and leaves in a hurry so she doesn’t cry.

***

Leaving the Paxtons with her tail tucked between her legs, Hope drives back to the hospital to tell Hank that they’ve lost Scott into the atoms. She isn’t ready to tell him, either, because underneath it all she thinks Hank might have a soft spot for Scott. If she’s being truthful, so does she. They are sort of friends at this point, after all the training together, on the mats and with the ants, and the time they’ve spent together working on the plan. It’s a really bad time to realize that they make a good team. 

She manages to tell Hank her fears about it anyway, and they spend the afternoon doing the crossword and playing games of chess that she’s too frazzled to win. 

Hank is the one to finally break the silence about Scott. “He’s smarter than either of us gave him credit for,” he offers, gruffly. 

“Sure,” Hope agrees, mostly because she has no idea what else to say.


	2. Chapter 2

At a little past 9PM, Hope’s cell phone lights up with an unfamiliar number three times in a row so she decides she should answer it on the fourth call, even though she’s loitering in Hank’s room past visiting hours and doesn’t want to draw attention to herself by talking. Really, she doesn’t want to be kicked out and forced to go home to her empty apartment when she is so full of guilt and what she fears might also be the tiniest hint of longing for a man who is most likely dead. 

Hope answers on the fourth call, and the voice on the other end of the phone is from a child who is beyond excited. “Miss Hope! It’s me Cassie Lang! My daddy came back! He gave me a hug and then he got dizzy and he barfed! He’s ok now though, so can you come get him?” 

Hope agrees and hangs up in a daze, gaping at the phone. “Scott came back,” she says, incredulously. “Do you think he remembers anything?”

“I guess you’ll find out,” Hank says, seriously, although there’s a strange twinkle in his eyes that tells Hope he’s already planning out the questions he’d like to ask Scott the minute he can see him again.

***

Hope pulls up to 840 Winter for the second time that day, and this time Scott is sitting outside on the steps talking with Cassie. Scott is wearing his usual black t-shirt, and from what she can tell, sweatpants that must be Jim’s and pink shower slides that must be Maggie’s. He kisses Cassie goodbye and gives her a giant hug, loudly promising her that he’ll be back for dinner tomorrow.

Scott ambles over to her car, all long limbs and boyish charm, and she carefully watches him as he walks over to her. Hope almost can’t believe he’s alive, but here he is, climbing into the front seat. She gives him another slow once over, just to make sure he’s well. Scott quirks an eyebrow.

“Has anybody ever told you it’s not polite to stare?”

Hope bites her lip to keep from smiling at him. “I wasn’t staring. I was checking to make sure you’re all in one piece.”

“Well, am I?” He gives her a conceited little smirk that two months ago would have set her teeth on edge but now, it’s not so bad.

“Are you what?” Hope is sure she’s blushing enough for it to be visible even in the dark, and her insides are fluttering so hard she thinks she might be vibrating.

“In one piece?” He gestures at his body, silently daring her to look again. She gives him another once over, and this time, it’s deliberate and decidedly less clinical. 

“I don’t know that you’re in one piece,” she teases, to break the sudden tension in the car, her eyes flicking down as she tucks her hair behind her ears. “I heard that you barfed.” 

“Gah! Do pinky swears mean nothing anymore? Cassie was never supposed to tell!” Scott smiles at her, green eyes bright. “If you must know, it’s true. I did barf when I came back. The whole thing was so weird.”

Hope starts the car and drives off toward Hank’s house. After no more than a minute of companionable silence, she can’t help her curiosity.

“So how’d you do it?” 

He exhales, amused. “When I started shrinking through the molecules, I panicked. The regulator malfunctioned and wouldn’t engage. So I messed with it,” he admits. “I had a blue disc left and I stuck it in the regulator, pressed the button, and reappeared in Cassie’s bedroom.” 

“That was a good idea,” Hope says softly, meaning it.

“Really?” Scott looks at her suspiciously. 

She pulls into Hank’s driveway, puts the car in park, and looks at Scott pointedly. “You came back, didn’t you?” 

“Good point.” He looks back at her, resting his head on the back of the seat, and meeting her eyes.

After a beat or two too long looking at his face, Hope nervously clears her throat. 

“Well, I should get going, I need to check on Hank in the morning,” she starts, apologetically. 

“Oh God! Hank! In all of this disappearing and reappearing, I completely forgot to ask how Hank is doing. Do you want to come in for some tea and fill me in? I finally figured out how to use the kettle,” Scott suggests instead, surprisingly convincing.

Hope finds herself agreeing to go inside the house with him. “I’ll join you, but I’m making the tea. You still don’t make it right.”

Somehow, Scott and Hope sit and talk at the kitchen table for hours, about Hank and the world between the molecules. She asks him about Maggie when they first met, and Cassie when she was a new baby. Hope finally leaves for her apartment at the meeting of late at night and early in the morning, when she can’t stop yawning and his eyelids are drooping, warmth in her cheeks and the fluttering back with a vengeance. 

***

Hope drives to Hank’s the next morning with the intention of getting him his favorite pair of pajamas so that he can be more comfortable. She tells herself it has nothing to do with Scott because Scott probably isn’t even awake yet. Even so, she finds herself at the fancy donut place buying some kind of crazy donut with milk glaze and Froot Loops on top, and a caramel mocha with extra whip. 

She doesn’t feel that bad buying him three days worth of sugar because she knows precisely how much working out Scott has to do to keep his abs the way he does when he eats like a child without boundaries. 

Because it’s not every day that your sort of friend returns from an alternate reality, she figures that if he’s sleeping, she won’t wake him. She’ll just leave this unhealthy breakfast on the kitchen table with a note and cross her fingers that he wakes up and finds it before the sugar sculpture masquerading as coffee gets cold. 

But he’s awake. 

Scott is doing laundry in the basement. She catches him as he’s coming up the stairs to add to the piles that he’s folded neatly in the bedroom where he’s been sleeping. Hope hovers in the doorway of the bedroom as he’s walking toward it, absently whistling a tune. 

“Hi,” she says, a little too loudly. 

“Hi,” Scott answers, startled to see her. “What are you doing here? I thought that we didn’t have a workout today because of Hank.” 

“We don’t have a workout planned, but I brought you breakfast,” Hope explains. “It’s in the kitchen.”

Scott raises an eyebrow at her and puts his folded shirt pile down on the bed, curiosity piqued by her gesture. He walks into the kitchen and peeks into the paper box. “Wow, a donut with sugar cereal on top for breakfast? Maybe I should get lost in the —”

“No,” Hope emphatically disagrees, cutting him off, “don’t even say it.”

“Yeah, it’s too soon, you’re right,” Scott backtracks, leaning his hip against the countertop with his donut box. “Do you want a piece of this before I house it?”

Hope politely declines, but she’s still not in a hurry to leave. “What’s going on with the cleaning back there?”

Scott looks up at her from his donut box again, still lounging against the counter. “I figured it’s about time I started looking for the apartment I’m supposed to get so that I can see Cassie more often. I haven’t been on my own for awhile, and now that Hank needs some time to recover, it’s as good a time as any to go.” 

Hope cocks her head to the side, listening to him thoughtfully. “Maybe you can stay to help Hank around here while he recuperates, first,” she suggests. “And also look for apartments, so you don’t choose a place too hastily.” 

“Not a bad idea, but I bet Hank would prefer some quiet, and we all know I’m not quiet.” 

“Or maybe your chatter doesn’t bother him as much as he pretends it does,” Hope argues, for the hell of it, speaking for herself more than Hank with that statement. 

Scott pauses for just a second from eating to size her up, his gaze entirely too hot. His eyes scan her, just a quick flick, down and back up again. 

“I can think of a few other reasons that a guy could use some privacy,” Scott jokes after what seems like an eternity, his expression deceptively nonchalant though his words are full of innuendo.

“Can you now,” Hope deadpans right back, looking at him appraisingly. Right then and there, she knows she’s in big, big trouble when it comes to Scott Lang. 

Scott responds quickly to the door she’s opened. He puts down his coffee cup very deliberately, stands up straight and takes a few steps towards the table where she’s sitting. She watches him walk toward her again, her mouth going dry with adrenaline. It feels like the air before a storm in the kitchen, or at least she thinks it does, practically crackling with electricity. Hope scoots her chair back from the table to stand up, thinking she’ll meet him halfway, wherever this is going.

Her cell phone rings instead. 

“It could be the hospital,” she says, apologetically, still meeting his eyes. 

“You should get that, then,” he agrees, though it’s incredibly, terribly obvious to her that he doesn’t really want her to answer her phone. 

Hope smiles weakly and answers, turning away from him to concentrate on the call. She feels rather than sees him cross back to the counter, and after the call ends, Scott’s leaning against it again and watching her. 

“The doctors think they’ll discharge him today, maybe early afternoon,” she tells him, trying to put their near kiss out of her mind for now, though it’s going to be something they'll have to address later. 

“That’s really good news, Hope, I’m glad.” Scott smiles genuinely at her, but he doesn’t quite meet her eyes. She somehow knows he’s also thinking about that almost kiss, and it makes her feel better. 

“Will you be here when we get back?” 

He nods. “I should be. My only plans are dinner with Cassie, but that’s not until later. Tell Hank I can’t wait to tell him all about how I remember almost absolutely nothing about the quantum realm.” 

Scott uses scare quotes when he says “quantum realm” because he thought it sounded fake when she told him what it was called last night, and she thinks it’s kind of funny that he does that, but she won’t tell him. 

“I’ll see you a bit later, then,” she says, looking at him. 

“Can’t wait,” he replies, and she thinks about the slight crack in his voice when he spoke the entire time she’s waiting for Hank to be discharged at the hospital.


	3. Chapter 3

Hope arrives back home a few hours later with Hank in tow, no more settled about what’s happening between her and Scott than she was when she left. Is it possible they’ve both changed enough in the past month to grow towards each other? 

Scott Lang isn’t the kind of person that Hope imagined herself being interested in dating. He’s more class clown than valedictorian, the kind of guy who tips his chair back for laughs and who eventually falls over backwards. Hope never understood that kind of person, really, she’s always cared too much about what people think about her to be that kind of person. But he’s been good for her, because he’s charming, and he so obviously respects her. In a weird way, his sense of humor makes her feel like laughing is not only allowed, but encouraged. What she knows for sure is that this has to be more than simple attraction, because he’s always been attractive and she’s always been able to ignore it until now.

Scott doesn’t make it easier for her to ignore what’s happening and force her heart back to the status quo. When they get home, she finds him making Hank’s bed with fresh sheets, the vacuum in the hallway alerting her to the fact that he’s been busy preparing for Hank’s return home, all totally unasked and unexpected tasks.

“Hi, Scott,” Hank says, drawing Scott’s attention to the doorway to the bedroom. “You didn’t need to go to all this trouble.” 

Scott smiles kindly at Hank. “Sure I did, you’re recovering from a gunshot wound. At the very least, you need clean sheets.” 

“I’m not complaining,” Hank says agreeably as she and Scott get him settled on the bed. 

“That’s a first,” Scott jokes. Hope hides a grin. 

“I can hang around, help you out for a few days,” Scott continues, eyeing Hope and showing her that he took her earlier suggestion seriously. “I used to take care of my mother, so this is totally fine.”

Hope fights the urge to stare at him. She wants to ask Scott about his mother. She wants to ask him about a lot of things, really, and show more of an interest in his life than she has before the heist. She’s more than a little bit affected by how nice he is despite his criminal record and his penchant for stupid jokes.

But for now, she doesn’t have much to say because Hank immediately agrees that Scott should stay a few more days. Scott plumps one of the pillows behind Hank, and says to call him if he needs anything. 

They leave Hank’s bedroom, and she wordlessly follows him to the bathroom across the hall to help him clean in there, too. She clears her throat and he looks up at her from the sink he has immediately started scrubbing. “I didn’t know about your mother,” she admits.

“I do have one, as it turns out. I had to come from somewhere,” Scott cracks, apologizing with his eyes for the bad joke. 

She purses her lips at him, but isn’t annoyed. “No, I meant that I’m sorry to hear that she passed away. Were you young?”

He looks back down at the sink and gives it a hard scrub. “No, I was 27. I had just finished my masters at MIT and I came back to California to take care of her. She had cancer. It’s why I left my PhD program.”

Hope studies Scott, thoughtfully. “I didn’t know you were in a PhD program, actually.”

“I wasn’t always the idiot who drove a car into a pool and got arrested while sopping wet,” he points out. “That’s just who I am now.”

Hope is quiet for a few seconds. When he turns his back to her to look at the bathtub and assess if he needs to clean it, she speaks up again, softly. “I think you might be just a little more than that.” 

The muscles in Scott’s back tense for a moment and then relax again, which is how she knows he heard her speak. “Thanks,” he says, back still toward her, his tone unexpectedly serious. 

When he doesn’t start talking again right away, she wonders if it’s because he doesn’t believe her, or if it’s because he does.

***  
Hank wakes from his nap cranky and demanding, which isn’t all that different than Hank any other day of the week. He’s hungry and irritable, so Scott disappears into the kitchen to make him something to eat. 

“I wish you learned how to cook,” Hank grumbles, “because it’s Scott that I want to talk to about the quantum realm. Now he’s in there making toast, and he makes the toast too crunchy.”

Eyebrows climbing beneath her bangs, Hope gives a very unladylike snort. “I wish you had been a better example of domesticity when I was growing up, but beggars can’t be choosers, Hank.”

She flashes a small smile to indicate she’s mostly kidding, even if the joke has barbs. 

Scott returns with what looks like perfectly edible, even appetizing, toast and eggs for Hank, though Hank eats it gingerly like the toast is made of rocks. Scott rolls his eyes dramatically at Hope while Hank’s attention is focused on his plate, and she bites her lip to keep herself from laughing. 

As predicted, Hank asks Scott questions about the quantum realm for almost a full hour, and most of the questions have no answer because Scott perceived the time there as less than thirty seconds. She can tell Scott is getting tired of fielding questions because he’s looking at her with pleading eyes, so she figures she’ll bail him out of the conversation. More specifically to the point, she wants to have it out with him about the tension brewing between them.

She approaches the chair where Scott is sitting and touches him lightly on the shoulder. “I’ll walk you out, Scott.”

Scott pats Hank on the knee, bidding him to get some rest. 

Hope does walk Scott out of the door into the hallway, with the intention of walking him completely outside, but he turns to her first. 

“Hope, when I was doing all the laundry, I washed my sheets,” he begins, looking at her, his eyes soft.

“Okay,” she drawls, kind of confused as to why this is causing him to gaze at her like she hung the moon, “and?”

“And, well, there was red lipstick on my pillow that I didn’t put there. I don’t want to make assumptions but, I mean I think it is, but I have to ask, is it yours?” 

Hope narrows her eyes and crosses her arms defensively, because well, she’s busted. “Shit.” 

“Shit?” 

“Yeah, shit — I was, I —“ Hope doesn’t know the best way to explain that she had been worried he was dead and that she didn’t want him to be dead because she’d miss him, so she slept on his goddamn pillow because it smelled like him. 

It doesn’t matter in the end, though, because just the confirmation that it was her lipstick on his pillow seems to be enough for Scott. He gently grabs her defensively crossed arms and kisses her before she can figure out how to kiss him first. 

The kiss is tentative, and sweet, and of course her overbearing absentee asshole father opens the door and interrupts them. Hope doesn’t think she can possibly be more annoyed, but she’s wrong, because Hank’s abject horror at catching them kissing causes Scott to throw the whole reality of it on her and run out of the house like his pants are on fire. The audacity of Scott claiming he has somewhere to be like she isn’t his goddamn ride to his dinner plans!

She isn’t sure if she wants to kiss Scott or kill him. She’s pretty sure it will always be like this between them, and if she really wants to kiss him she’s going to have to get over wanting to kill him. 

Hank, however, is looking at her expectantly. “Do you have to drive him somewhere?” 

“Yes,” she answers, curtly. 

“Is what I saw real?” 

“Yes,” she says again, embarrassed not by Scott, but embarrassed for having this conversation with a father that hardly knows her.

“Why?” 

She sighs, but then grins impishly. “Because he’s smarter than we both give him credit for,” she says, triumphantly, using his words against him. With a hasty goodbye, she starts after Scott. 

***  
Hope follows Scott outside, where he’s been waiting for her, leaning on her car casually, but as soon as he sees her, he stands up straight and starts watching her every move like a hawk. 

“You really are full of shit,” she calls to him as she crosses the side porch toward her car. 

“Yeah,” Scott agrees, grinning. “He wasn’t wrong.”

“You couldn’t have waited until we got out of the house?” Hope crosses her arms again, like she did upstairs, and glares at him from the steps, but she’s not really all that mad. He wouldn’t be Scott Lang if he didn’t jump first and think later. 

“Sorry, I don’t have a lot of practice with this kind of thing,” he says, a little sheepish. “I was married and then I was in prison. I guess I jumped the gun back there. Did I ruin this forever?”

She gets within two steps of the car, tucks her hair behind her ears, and smiles back at him, just a little. “No, you didn’t.” 

“Awesome,” he drawls, emphatically, watching her intently again. 

“This is probably a terrible idea, you and me,” she warns, meeting his eyes. 

“Probably,” he agrees, though his eyes are bright and happy, “but without an office building to go terrorize with your power suits, you have way too much time on your hands. I have some other terrible ideas for you to do, if you’re interested.”

Hope narrows her eyes at him, making a face and blushing. “I don’t do this very often, Scott.” 

“Stand outside your father’s house and negotiate kissing an ex-con again?”

Hope cracks a real smile, and shakes her head slowly, making a decision. “No, it’s not negotiable. It’s going to happen.” 

“Can it happen now?”

Hope laughs at his earnest expression, and she appreciates that he’s waited for her to choose if she wants this, wants him. She crosses the rest of the distance, grabs his collar, and kisses him, lightly pressing her mouth to his, like he did upstairs. 

Without Hank there to interrupt, Scott’s hands go to her waist, and Hope’s around his neck. This kiss is lazy and slow. When they both pull back to breathe, she rests her forehead against his. 

“Better than a punch in the face?” she quips, rubbing her nose against his nose. 

“Kinda felt like a punch in the face,” he  
mumbles, a little dazed, so she kisses him again.

“We can’t get distracted by this other stuff,” she says, breathlessly, a minute or two later.

“I’ve always been distracted by you, so I’ll be fine,” Scott promises, and she laughs into their next kiss, which is quick to turn more chaotic than sweet, with something bigger and heavier simmering underneath. 

“Still want me to stay here with your dad?” Scott’s question is muffled against her lips, and she smiles. 

“I have an apartment,” she informs him, smugly, nuzzling his nose again. 

“Hank’s going to kill me,” Scott murmurs, a minute later, breathing like he’s been running.

“Stop talking,” she orders, enjoying the cinnamon taste of his mouth more than what’s appropriate for a driveway, even a secluded driveway in a posh neighborhood. He must have had one of his Altoids while waiting for her to follow; how bold of him to assume she would want to try again, even if he was right. 

Scott pulls away after what feels like the most pleasant of eternities, and takes both of her hands in his, swinging her arms. “Hope,” he whines, smiling with a mouth kiss reddened and with eyes maniacally bright, “I have to be at dinner with my ex-wife and my daughter. We have to stop.”

She bites her lip, nodding. The tips of her ears burn red; kissing Scott Lang has turned her upside down and out of control, so she struggles to compose herself.

“No, don’t do that,” he says, entirely too tender for her peace of mind, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Don’t go back into your shell. I would so much rather be here with you, making out outside your car in broad daylight. But I get to see my kid.”

She smiles, showing him her dimples, and nods once because of course he needs to see Cassie. He groans like leaving her is going to be physically painful. 

“Can I see you after?” He smiles at her again, the full onslaught of his grin. “Is that too much? I don’t want to press my luck.”

Hope shrugs and quirks an eyebrow. “Well, I guess. Somebody has to pick you up, so it might as well be me.” 

“Oh, I see how it is,” he says, amused by her attempt at nonchalance. 

“I’ll come get you and we can watch a movie at my place before I send you back to be Hank’s nurse.”

Scott steals one more quick kiss, and heads to the passenger side of the car. 

“Can’t wait,” he says, and she again thinks about the tiny crack in his voice the entire time he’s at dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of my sounding boards, including Sam, El, Rachel and Jan. 
> 
> To my Twitter Ant-Stans, ilu and I hope you like it. 
> 
> You can find me on twitter @DorasoloSaysHey and tumblr @Dorasolo.


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